


I'm A Long Time Traveling From Home

by Black_Hole_of_Procrastination



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: F/M, Post WWI/Peaky Blinders AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-26
Updated: 2015-03-04
Packaged: 2018-03-15 09:56:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3442904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Black_Hole_of_Procrastination/pseuds/Black_Hole_of_Procrastination
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jon thought his past was long buried in the mud of France, until a pretty barmaid catches his eye. </p>
<p>Post WWI-AU. Loosely inspired by ‘Peaky Blinders’.</p>
<p>This originally was a drabble on tumblr. I've decided to continue on with this universe so I thought I'd post it here too.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

_Castle Black Tavern, 1919_

The pub’s never been this quiet.

Just moments before, all hell was about to break loose. A scrap started amongst some of the boys after Dolorous Edd made a smart remark. Jon let it go on for a bit, ready to step in if things went too far. 

In the end, he doesn’t even have to leave his seat. A high, clear voice breaks through the din, and a hush falls over the crowd.

_“Of all the comrades that e’er I had_  
 _Are sorry for my going away_  
 _And all the sweethearts that e’er I had_  
 _Would wish me one more day to stay”_

The tune is familiar, one from another life. A time when Jon’s head was filled with something other than the sound of shells and rifles and men’s anguished cries.

He spots its source across the room: a barmaid standing on a chair. He’s not seen her around here before. She’s a pretty one, a slip of a thing, with glossy, dark curls spilling down her back.  _Far too fine to be singing in a smoky pub._  But for all that she’s surrounded by a room of rough, drunken men, she keeps her chin raised high and her voice steady.

_“But since it falls unto my lot_  
 _That I should rise and you should not_  
 _I’ll gently rise and I’ll softly call_  
 _Good night and joy be with you all”_

The spell of her song hangs over the men, and while they return to their drinks once she’s finished, they do so somewhat less boisterously than before.

“She’s a fine voice,” Donal Noye says, topping off each of their glasses. “We haven’t had singing in here since the war.”

“Why d’you think that is, Donal?” Jon asks darkly, taking a sip.

The one-armed barman blanches, and Jon regrets his words. He’s been with the Night’s Watch for well over a year now, serving as a sort of second to old Mormont. Still, he doesn’t think he will ever get used to the fear he now strikes in men.

“Apologies, Mr. Snow!” Donal says quickly, eager to make amends. “Alayne is new. She didn’t know.”

Jon casts a cursory glance to where the pretty barmaid is refilling glasses at a nearby table.

“It’s fine,” he shrugs. “Just don’t make a habit of it when Mormont’s around, eh?”

“Of course.” Donal gives him an uneasy smile and a nod, before disappearing into the safety of his backroom.

“Fucking hells!” Grenn crows next to him, a grin stretched across his face. “Jon Snow’s going soft!”

Jon’s reply is cut off by the sound of shattering glass. He looks up to find the new barmaid staring at him, a smashed bottle of whiskey at her feet. He meets startled blue eyes, and it’s then he sees it.

_Sansa._

Donal rushes over in a panic, hurriedly shooing the girl back to the bar, while bustling to clean up the broken glass. He apologizes profusely to Jon for the disturbance, but Jon is too shocked to respond.

He has no idea what his little cousin is doing in a place as rough as this, or why she is called Alayne, or how her familiar red curls came to be brown. She’s in hiding, that much is plain. But whatever the reason, Jon knows it’s probably best he not bodily haul her from the pub demanding answers, as he so desperately wishes to do.

He finishes his drink and mumbles an excuse to his companions. Sam, ever observant, shoots him a look of concern, but thankfully keeps his peace.

Jon ducks away into the back alleyway of the pub, and settles onto an empty crate. He pulls out a cigarette, and lights it with unsteady hands.

_How can this be?_

Jon thought Sansa was gone, just like the others. Then, of course, Sansa was never quite like the rest. He never did receive word confirming she’d been taken by fever or a bullet, as with all their other kin.

Last he knew she was in London, staying with her mother’s sister, but that was many years ago, around the time Jon had set out for France. Since then, her aunt had died and Sansa disappeared in the south without a trace. Jon knew Uncle Benjen had made some inquiries when he first returned to England. He even hired a private detective, but it all had come to nothing. Sansa Stark was lost to them… _until now_.

Jon is almost finished with his third cigarette by the time the door to the alley swings open.

His heart buries itself somewhere in his throat when he sees it is Sansa ( _thank gods_ ) carrying a bucket. With a surprisingly experienced hand, she tosses its contents onto the cobbles, before catching his eye. She freezes in the doorway like a startled fawn, blue eyes wide and shining across the dimness.

“Jon,” she breaths out his name.

“Sansa.”

The sound of her name across the darkening alley seems to snap something within her.

In a handful of hurried steps, she closes the distance between them, and launches herself into his arms. She buries her head into the crook of his neck, tears wetting his shirtcollar. He cradles her head, petting her hair, while blinking back tears of his own.

He rocks them back and forth gently, cooing what he hopes is comforting nonsense into her ear. Bit by bit, Sansa’s grip on his shirt begins to ease, and her sobs quiet.

“I thought I was the only one,” she confesses, her voice tremulous from her tears. Jon sighs, tucking her closer against his chest.

“It’s alright. You’re alright,” he murmurs into her temple. “I’m here, Sansa.”

She nods, content to stay within the circle of his arms for a while longer. Jon doesn’t mind. 

For the first time since his boots touched French soil, he feels home.

 


	2. Chapter 2

When Jon learns Sansa is renting rooms in the Bolton Boys’ territory, he wastes no time moving her somewhere safe. He lets her lead the way from the pub’s alley through the darkened Birmingham streets to collect her things. 

Though Jon knows there’s no way for them to suspect who she truly is, he also knows there’s no such thing as being too careful where the Bolton’s are concerned. Besides, he will sleep easier knowing she’s safe.  _That is if the war in his head quiets enough for him to find sleep at all_.  

He doesn’t dare take her to his own shabby lodgings. They suit him fine, a bachelor who’s never home enough to notice where he lays his head, but he cringes to think what Sansa would make of the peeling wallpaper and musty furnishings. Not to mention the impropriety of it. The shame and disappointment of the specter of Ned Stark hanging over him is enough to prevent him from installing Sansa in his rooms. Instead, he goes to the next place he can think of.

Val answers the door clad only in a crimson painted silk dressing gown, a cigarette dangling from her lips, and her hair tied up in rags. If Sansa is scandalized by the other woman’s state of dress (or lack there of) she’s too polite to show it.

While this is not the first time Jon has come to Val’s doorstep in the middle of the night, it is the first time he’s done so with a young girl at his side. Jon makes hasty introductions, carefully referring to Sansa by her assumed name, ‘Alayne’. It will be easier if the truth remains between just the two of them for now.

Val arches a penciled-in brow, but doesn’t press him for more information. Jon is grateful to her for it. As uneasy as he is to leave his cousin, he knew he could count on Val to keep an eye on Sansa without asking too many questions.

Jon bids them goodnight with assurances to return in the morning to sort things out. Sansa offers him a weak smile, following Val up the stairs, wide blue eyes seeking his before turning at the landing.

The next day finds Jon sipping tea in Val’s parlor out of cups he’d wager have held more gin than actual tea in times past. That Val owns china teacups at all (let alone ones with hand-painted blue roses) seems absurd. The boardinghouse she keeps is hardly The Savoy and Val never seems to bother with unnecessary frivolities.

_It is one of the things he likes best about her._

He suspects the appearance of such fine cups as well as the uncharacteristic plate of ginger biscuits laid out have everything to do with the girl seated primly across from him. Before leaving them to their tea, Jon had not missed the reproachful look Val shot in his direction nor the affectionate pat she left on Sansa’s head.

_Not even under her roof a day, and Val’s already made a pet of his little cousin._

He really shouldn’t be surprised that Val’s taken such a shine to her. Uncle Ned used to say Sansa could charm a bird out of a tree. But Jon is not here for tea and charming conversation. They have business to attend to.

Sansa will not speak a word of how she came to be in Birmingham, and she bristles some when he hands her a five pound note and a ticket for the 4 o’clock to London. He knows it’s not much, but it should keep her comfortable until Howland Reed can secure her a position as a governess or in a shop. Something more fitting for a gently-bred girl than pulling pints. 

It was Reed who plucked him from the streets of Small Heath after mother’s death and placed him with the Starks all those years ago. If there was one man Jon trusted to look after Sansa, it is him

“Mr. Reed was a friend of your father’s,” he coaxes. “He can help you settle in London. Find you some proper work.” .

“I can’t go back there,” Sansa says, ducking her head.

Jon tenses. Whatever sent Sansa running north, she’s afraid of it still.

“Maybe I can get a hold of Uncle Benjen,” he reasons. Perhaps with kin she’d feel more at ease. “He’s traveling now, but I may be able to get a letter to him through his solicitor.”

Sansa looks at him, blue eyes shining with unshed tears.

“Please don’t send me away, Jon! Please!”

“Sansa—”

“Please Jon!” she pleads, frantically reaching for his hand across the table. “I won’t be any trouble to you, I promise! I’ll earn my own way.”

“What? Serving drunkards and worse?” he scoffs, but immediately regrets his harsh words when Sansa’s face falls, her fingers pulled from his grasp. Jon sighs, running a tired hand over his face.

He was born to this place. The name Snow was known by many and respected by most (the only legacy his father left to him before disappearing in the night). For so long, these streets were all he knew.

His time at Winterfell seems like a very distant dream now. He’d arrived at the Starks door, a boy of eleven, with all his worldly goods tied up in a sack; a poor relation come to plead on their charity. His uncle and cousins were always kind. Even his Aunt Catelyn had treated him well, in her own brusque way. But for all their kindness, Jon had never quite belonged. He was never meant for fine things and country air. He was born with soot in his lungs and blood on his knuckles.

Small Heath is his home.

But Sansa? She was not meant for this rough sort of life, not meant for dingy streets and late nights spent in pubs warding off drunken men’s wandering hands.

“Sansa, this is no place for you,” he says.

“It is, Jon,” she argues, shaking her head. “It is because  _you_  are here.”

Jon stares at her, hands clenched in his lap. A good man would refuse her. A good man would make her see sense. A good man would march her down to the station and put her on the train himself.

Jon Snow is not a good man.

“Alright,” he agrees quietly, trying to ignore the way Sansa’s face lights at the word. She reaches over to return the ticket and five pounds, but he shakes his head. “Keep it. In case you change your mind, eh?”

She looks ready to protest, but then thinks better of it, tucking the ticket and money next to her forgotten cup.

“Thank you, Jon,” she says, smiling so prettily he cannot help but smile in return.

_Damn him_.

 


	3. Chapter 3

Sansa keeps her job at the Castle Black Tavern, in spite of Jon’s repeated objections. He’d prefer she find some other work, or return south, away from the smoke and noise of Small Heath. Of course, that would mean letting her go, and he’s not certain he’s ready to do that just yet.

She seems content enough and old Donal Noye says she’s the best barmaid he’s had in an age. But Jon cannot reconcile the prim, ladylike cousin he knew with this ‘Alayne’, who mops up drunks’ sick and empties cuspidors without so much as batting an eye.

She still will say nothing of what happened to her in London. Jon doesn’t ask, though not knowing nearly drives him mad. She is so changed, hardened from the gentle girl he remembers, and yet also skittish in a way that makes him dread the worst.

After one glass of whiskey too many, he stupidly tries to wheedle it out of Val, convinced she is in Sansa’s confidence. Val only glares at him, her painted lips twisted in fury.

“What we women did to survive while you lot were off getting killed is our own bloody business!” 

Jon knows when it’s time to let a thing alone. As much as Val has Sansa’s confidence, Sansa has Val’s loyalty, and he’ll not challenge that. 

He decides he can allow Sansa her secrets. After all, he keeps enough of his own from her. 

He never breathes a word about the Night’s Watch or Mormont. No doubt she’s formed her own ideas of how he spends his time when they’re apart. She must hear her share in the pub. Most night’s it’s half-full with Watch lads, and they’ve never been known for curbing their tongues. If she has heard any tales of Jon Snow, she doesn’t say. 

When he comes up to the bar one night, his lip bloodied after a fight with some of Bolton’s bookies at Cheltenham, they both pretend nothing’s amiss; pretend he’s still the honorable boy Ned Stark raised.

Perhaps he thinks he is protecting her by keeping her in ignorance or maybe he is ashamed. Most likely it’s a little of both.

The only part of his life with the Watch he’s willing to share with her is Sam.

A bookkeeper to bookmakers, Sam Tarly makes for an unusual addition to their enterprise. Before joining up with Mormont, he came from a posh family down south, but had some sort of falling out with his father. The lads give him rather a hard time (especially since he spent the length of the war in an office instead of a trench) but the old bear keeps him on, claiming Sam gives an air of respectability to their unrespectable dealings. 

Jon has little in common with the shy clerk and yet somehow Sam’s become the closest thing he has to family in this rotten city. 

He takes Sansa with him to Sunday dinner at the Tarly’s. 

Sam’s little brick house on Watery Lane is like a second home to Jon. He loves the warmth and sounds from the kitchen and the chaos of children running from room to room; reminders of happier times. 

But when he sees Sansa, standing nervous and out of place in Sam’s cluttered parlor, he begins to regret bringing her here.

The girl he knew would have turned her nose up at this cramped, over-crowded little house. She and Jeyne Poole would have laughed at awkward, stammering Sam and his strange, gypsy wife. 

If Sansa were to snub Sam in some way now, Jon’s not certain he could forgive her for it. 

_This was a mistake_. Jon thinks, feeling ill suddenly.

Jon’s worries come to nothing. Sansa is kind, if a little quiet. She seems to take well to Gilly, and talks easily with Sam, though, to Jon’s great amusement, his bashful friend has trouble meeting her eyes. 

The children are fascinated with her, forgetting their games long enough to circle around Sansa’s chair. The bolder ones tug at her sleeves with sooty fingers, peppering her with questions, while the others gawk at her curiously. He can hardly blame them. Dressed in her Sunday best, a sprigged blue dress with a string of jade beads, Sansa’s one of the prettiest things he’s ever seen.

She’s sweet and patient with each of her little admirers, and by supper’s end, Vera, Sam’s youngest, has crawled into Sansa’s lap, her pudgy little face nestled under his cousin’s chin. The sight nearly has him smiling.

They bid Sam and Gilly goodnight, before walking out onto the dark Birmingham streets together. Sansa rests her hand in the crook of his arm as he escorts her towards Val’s.

“I like them,” Sansa says, her lips tilted into a shy smile. 

_She’s smiled more this night than she has in all the time since he found her singing on a chair in Donal Noye’s pub._  

“I’m glad.”

They walk in comfortable silence, Sansa tucked into his side, perhaps closer than is proper. Not that he’s complaining. Jon feels warm and content and lighter than he has in ages.

“Why did Sam call you that?” Sansa asks, blue eyes fixed on his face.

“Call me what?” 

“The ‘heir apparent’?”

Jon swallows thickly, ducking his head away from her. 

“Just some foolishness,” he murmurs dismissively. 

Sam was only mucking about, teasing Jon for getting too self-important. Mormont never said it outright, but it was plain to see he was grooming Jon to take over, something Jon had accepted with a certain degree of reluctance.

Jon was strangely at ease leading men, perhaps the only positive thing to come of his time in the army. But to be king of a band of Small Heath criminals and thugs was nothing to boast about (at least not to Sansa).  

“It makes you sound like a prince out of a story.” 

Her tone is teasing, but there’s a glimmer of something close to admiration in her eye that leaves him feeling hollow. 

“I’m no prince.”

She laughs and for a moment she looks like the girl he remembers, the one who wove crowns out of wildflowers and recited poetry from memory. That girl has no business wasting away in a dingy Birmingham pub or hanging about men like him. 

Perhaps it was time he try writing to Uncle Benjen again. 


End file.
